


lights will guide you home

by puffygyu



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Doctor Wonwoo, M/M, Merman Mingyu, Slow Burn, and falls in love along the way, description of violence, i am really sorry for this mingyu, mingyu is an orginial atlantis city boy, mingyu just wants to go home to the sea, nothing too graphic but it is still there, they have their soft moments in between, while the merfolk lives in the 21th century humans still use speers soo kinda, wonwoo is more like an assistant than a doctor but he gives his best nonetheless
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:21:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28617966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puffygyu/pseuds/puffygyu
Summary: When Mingyu had started his adventure up to the surface with Seungkwan and Seokmin, he hadn’t imagined his day to end with never seeing the ocean again and relying on the mercy of the two-legged land-walkers.orMerman Mingyu ends up in a doctor’s fish tank far away from the ocean and Wonwoo is the only one who can heal his broken heart and fin.
Relationships: Jeon Wonwoo/Kim Mingyu
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	lights will guide you home

**Author's Note:**

> you can listen to the (not so great) playlist for this story [here](https://music.apple.com/de/playlist/lights-will-guide-you-home-mergyu-won/pl.u-XkD00pruD9zVEk)

Breaking rules wasn’t high up on Kim Mingyu’s daily agenda. If he could say so about himself, he was rather modest when it came to the bending of guidelines for expected behaviour – but when Seungkwan and Seokmin came into the equation, things changed.

The first thing a young merman or mermaid learned from their parents and later from their countless teachers was to not cross the line between the swimming and the walking; do not swim to close to the shore, because there the realm of the creatures without a fishtail began. Everyone knew about the walkers of the land, who were motivated by greed and jealousy, heard about the stories where innocent water-creatures died due those traits, killed, eaten or sold off into experiments.

But being young and foolish, dead and devastation were so far away from the merman and mermaids to be (and even Mingyu’s dad admitted several times to taking a glance at human girls when he was a teenager), so they brushed off the warnings again and again.

While Mingyu always felt unsettled, too clumsy and anxious about the consequences his actions would cause in the end, Seungkwan and Seokmin always got the worst of him. The two of them were known for their fearless mischief, Seungkwan the frontman with his unlimited self-confidence, Seokmin the shadow-man responsible for all the foolish plans – and Mingyu in between, not knowing why he was here in the first place but tagging along, nonetheless.

In his 22 years of existence as a city boy of Atlantis, he made it through quite some Seungkwan-Seokmin induced embarrassment. Like the time they forced him into holding a pet-ray (it scared the living daylight of Mingyu every day he opened his eyes in the morning) or to dress up as Poseidon for their school dance back in High-School. Or how he should tag along to the surface, to spy on humans and catch a little bit of _real_ sunshine laying on rocks (“not that toned-down shit we get back down here” citing Seungkwan), the plan both of his friends were proposing to him once again.

Mingyu gave them an incredulous look, Seokmin lounging on his sofa, chewing on kelp and lazily waging his dark-blue fishtail, Seungkwan shooting him a convincing grin, his own pinkish tail not signalling any movements.

Since Mingyu had left his parents’ house half a year ago to settle for a tiny overpriced apartment at the outskirts of Atlantis, the two other mermen had made themselves a home there, getting even more chances to annoy the struggling owner of the apartment. Sometimes Mingyu regretted all his life choices, this situation was one of those times.

Mingyu looked at Seungkwan’s bright and careless grin and already knew, he had lost this one-sided fight – but it didn’t mean he would go down without some pointed words.

“So, you want to sneak past all those guards and risk getting sent to prison just to catch a little sunlight?”

Seungkwan rolled his eyes.

“You are way too anxious Gyu, when did we ever get into serious trouble?”

Mingyu’s own dark-silver tail twitched in distress hearing the words, too clearly remembering the day were two men discovered the three (back then) merboys looking for mussels. The scar on his left shoulder told the story of nearly escaping the aggressive and furious hands and tools of those vile land-creatures; an experience he didn’t plan on repeating anytime in his life.

“It is fine Gyu, Jeonghan went up yesterday. According to him the humans are too distracted these days with their lives away from the shore.”

Seokmin had stopped chewing on Kelp and instead decided to tune into the conversation, knowing his participation would make Mingyu submit completely. As expected, the shoulders of the brown-haired boy sagged in and he sighed in utter defeat.

“Only one last time.”

Seungkwan and Seokmin beamed at him.

With its 1500 residents Atlantis was the biggest city on the other side of the sea, housing plenty of important facilities and institutions. Being born in the city came with certain privileges, many of them the merfolk of far more remoted and smaller settlements did not possess. One of those were the special trained and skilled Protectors, which did what their name indicated: protecting the whole of Atlantis and its citizens. Almost every small merchild dreamed of being part of this elite troupe, wearing cool uniforms, having the respect of everyone and fighting against horrible, non-tameable seamonsters and (when they were lucky) even humans. When they grew older, almost all those dreams shattered with the realization, that being a Protector mostly included boringly guarding the city wall made of shells and seaweed, with the highlight being a wild shark sneaking its way into the house of Granny Insook.

Mingyu had been there, dreaming until the age of 10, till his dad invited a Protector-acquaintance over, shattering all dreams of the, back then, small merboy in merely five minutes.

Besides catching wild sharks and witnessing the cracks of the city wall, they were also responsible of letting people in and out of the city – meaning the trio had to pass them as inconspicuous as possible, before venturing off to their sunlight-adventure.

Despite being the tallest out of the group (and mostly everywhere else) Mingyu tried to make himself small behind his friends every time they stood in front of the testing gazes of the bulky elite-unit. Seungkwan’s self-confidence however did not sway, happily babbling on about them wanting to visit the seaweed field ten minutes away from the city, to search for eels, Seokmin dutifully nodding besides him. After eyeing them suspiciously for a moment, the merman lost the will to execute his job, stamping some forms and making them sign a sheet: if they came back after a certain hour, they wouldn’t be let back into the city due to safety procedures. Mingyu signed his sheet rather shakily, a bad feeling settling in his stomach.

Their rise to the far-away surface began counting fifteen laps, leaving the seaweed field behind and right across where the descendance into the wilderness started. Even though the sickening feeling was still present, he couldn’t help but feel excitement for the trip to unfold. He would never admit it in front of his friends, but he also longed for the sun to shine down on his exposed, tan shoulders, while taking in the surroundings, which looked so different than with what Mingyu had grown up.

Atlantis had been located for more than ten centuries in midst of the ocean, the northern outskirts nestled on a cliff fall, dubbed “the mermaid’s sorrow” due to a massacre of mermen ten centuries ago with their beloved ones grieving the loss on the cliff. While the city grew over the time, sadly the human population did as well, with a flock of them settling down across the mermaids’ sorrow. What started as a small group of people grew over the centuries to an ever-expanding clan, which heavily relied on the sea to fill their stomachs and pockets. The citizens of Atlantis were not amused, too many of them falling victim to fishing nets, with the land walkers getting bolder and venturing closer into their territory. The beach and the shores were therefore declared restricted area for anyone, the chances of setting off a disaster, which could bring doom to the whole merfolk population too present.

Not everyone was a fan of that.

There were the pearl-blues in the Halls of Glory (the parliament of Atlantis with the city self-governing itself) that opted for a non-restricted lifestyle, a lifestyle in freedom, including slaughtering and fighting against humans. They wore marine-shimmering bracelets on their tails and arms to indicate their belonging to the sea and their believes, thereby earning the nickname “pearl-blue”.

Mingyu hadn’t voted once for them in their elections, not being the guy for slaughter. Said, he also wasn’t part of those starry-eyed guys, which wholeheartedly believed that the two existing worlds could live peacefully next to each other and would have loved to expose their existence to the land-walkers here and there. There was a reason half of their schoolbooks was filled with gruesome stories of mermaid extinction through the creatures walking on two legs. Mingyu was neither side war nor side blindly trusting peace, he saw himself on the somewhat rational side – till their existence wasn’t discovered, there was no reason to wage war or offering up their fins for an unfair peace treaty. Mingyu liked to seem himself as a rational guy, even though no rationality could be found in his actions, rather following the saying “curiosity kills the sea horse” here. Because yes, still, after all those stories and warnings, he was so damn curious about the other world on the surface. He wanted to know if humans also had pet-sharks, used spears to fight or simply had a home they would return to. Back in his last years of merfolk education he tried study up on those weird habitants of land, learned some of their words that got delivered by brave merfolk escaping their threat. It was his moment of realization how few things they actually knew about the other one (not shocking enough to risk his life for more information though) and forced him to stop after half a year, because he simply learned everything there was to learn from their short schoolbooks.

This was all whipped from his memory when he started ascending to the surface, higher and higher till he could almost feel the blinding sun on this skin.

They didn’t meet anyone on their quest to break the whole rule-catalogue of Atlantis (fortunately, Mingyu didn’t know how to explain their dead-give away behaviour) and after an exhausting swim their faces broke through the surface.

It took Mingyu’s body one moment to stop choking on air and getting used to the new way of breathing, but then he sucked in a big wave of it, his hair getting caressed by the wind and sighed in content.

Without even looking he could feel Seungkwan grinning at him.

“Don’t say anything.”

“I didn’t even plan on.”

And with those words and a loud snicker Seungkwan boldly took off in the direction of a huge stone formation near the beach. With a sigh Mingyu had no other choice but to follow suit, Seokmin in tow, who started rambling about the nice view on the other side of the world. And Mingyu couldn’t even disagree. He liked the trees growing on the other side, the smell of the wind and maybe also just the close proximity to the sun.

The feeling of euphoria the boy felt was shortly damped, when Seungkwan suddenly pulled back from the rocks he reached a second ago and his face merged into fear.

 _Humans_ he mouthed.

Well, so much for the humans being occupied with their life away from the shore, thanks Jeonghan.

Mingyu could see the conflict raging on in Seungkwan. The boy was curious by nature, never being scared off by the unknown. And that curiosity fought a fierce battle with his basic survival instinct. In the end (and like almost every time) his curiosity won him over and the youngest of them swam right behind the rocks to peek.

Mingyu hissed, tried to get the attention of his friend, ready to bolt out of here. He had come for the enjoyment of nature and not the danger of spying on humans. But after a while even coward Seokmin crossed the line and swam over to the rocks, exchanging hushed words with Seungkwan.

Mingyu started chewing on his tongue, feeling his curiosity also picking a battle.

After several minutes the two other mermen turned back to their missing friend and gesticulated for him to swim closer.

With a sigh Mingyu finally caved in and swam closer, to also take a sneak peek at the scenario unfolding beyond the safety of the rocks.

He could make out half a dozen land walkers clumsily standing in the ocean, some of them almost kneeing into the waves, holding things into the water Mingyu couldn’t make out. His eyes hushed over the hunched shadows. All the humans were women, even though they didn’t spot the same lush, wavy hair, pristine hair and slender figures mermaids possessed. Were they participating in some sorts of weird ritual?

Against his better judgement he silently splashed his fin and scooted closer to the rocks, their only protection from the piercing and dark eyes of the humans. Beside him Seokmin started squirming, either in an effort of drifting closer or away from the stone slab, Mingyu not paying attention, his eyes being too fixed on the spectacle in front of him. Asides from the unfortunate scare-accident, he never had this much of a close contact to humans and so he tried to take in the scenario, before he had to once again dive under the surface to the apartment, he called home. Maybe it had been worth after all, breaking enough rules to be eligibly expelled as an Atlantis citizen. Fascinated, the young merman followed every movement of the creatures in front of him. The longer he looked, the more immersed he got. The other two were also mesmerized, he could tell by the way that none of them spoke a single word, even efficiently shutting up chatterbox Seungkwan.

They couldn’t tell how long they just sat there, feeling the sun on their skin, watching the two-legged creatures in front of them doing whatever they were doing.

A deep, incoherent voice rumbling almost next to them snapped the three mermen back into reality and into the danger, they exposed themselves to. They needed a moment to realize, that someone really spoke to them. Mingyu’s throat went dry when he saw the two-legged men standing there on the shore – clearly looking at them. Talking to them.

A frown appeared on the big and knobbed face of the human being when he did not receive any answer from the frozen boys in front of him. He took another step, determined to call those three out on their behaviour, which did not fit the obvious mature age they were displaying.

Meanwhile all sirens were going off in Mingyu’s head when the man took another step forward, clearly stepping into the protective zone the mermen had established for themselves behind the rocks. He allowed his eyes shortly to flitter away from the threat in front of him to his friends besides him, waiting for some kind of instruction on how to proceed further – they were the ones wanting to come here, so they also must have a back-up plan for those kind of scenarios. Looking back, this might have been the first crucial mistake he made; the second the man had decided to speak to them, they should have bolted for the freedom of the ocean. But they did not and rather continued gawking in the air, leaving them looking like the dried squid street ventures sold on special holidays.

So much for having any sort of plan.

They may have pulled it off, if not in that minute a wave kicked in, exposing the tip of Seungkwan’s fin. Betrayed by the ocean, what a way to go.

For a millisecond the whole world slowed down, no sound could be heard – and then hell broke loose.

The man in front of him started screaming, deep and threatening, even though Mingyu could not understand the words coming out of his grotesque mouth, he knew these were no words of friendship – especially when he started making his way through the water to them.

Seokmin fled first, splashing his fin into the water, creating a cascade of salty seawater to rise, giving him the much-needed speed to escape the human. Seungkwan grabbed Mingyu’s arm, pulling desperately to make the bigger merman move. Mingyu got dragged with the smaller one for a meter but finding no spot to deeply dive underwater that would cover his whole body and therefore provide a safe space far away from the humans. Seungkwan’s nails scratched a last time over his arm, before he let go to dive under the water himself, his pinkish fin leaving water droplets all over Mingyu’s face. He was all on his own now, franticly trying to find a spot to make his way under the sea, back to safety. He could hear the voices of more humans now, getting closer and closer to his spot, no doubt coming for him, while the first man clumsily paved his way through the waves. Finally, Mingyu’s eyes laid on the spot from which they had risen to the surface, promising enough space for his whole body to disappear in the depths of the sea.

For one fleeting second Mingyu thought everything would be fine, this just being another scare on his body and heart, a story he would tell over and over again when he got older. _Remember the time when we almost got hunted down by those humans on the beach? For one moment I thought I would see the ruler of the seas himself, but at the end we made it out._

Then a blinding pain shot through his tail and he cried out. He tried to move forward, but the pain just grew, too much for him, he looked back in panic and saw a spear sticking out of his fin, boring deep down into his skin. Before he could desperately try to escape once again, there were hands all over him, tearing on his hair, skin and he cried out in pain again, this time louder, but barely audible with being above the surface of the ocean. One hand ripped his bracelet off his arm, which he had worn since birth, sending the glistening pearls flying into the water, fingernails digging into the spot. Mingyu shook violently, trying to get those hands off himself, to free his fin, to make it all stop. But of course, he was dealing with humans, it did not stop. He tried biting, a short satisfying feeling shooting through him, when he heard a deep yelp of pain somewhere besides him. Or was it over him? He had lost all sense of direction by now. Suddenly, something heavy crashed down on top of his head, making him see sea-stars. He felt a rush of dizziness, followed by a disgusting intake of pain once again coming from his fin, both things combined making him stop in his movements for a short moment. When he got control over his body again, he felt something rough cutting deep into his skin and with horror his eyes landed on a robust looking rope in the process of being slung around his body. One of the men grabbed his arm, exactly where his bracelet should have been and bent his limbs into places they were not supposed to be. Even more pain shot through him and numbed him.

Loud voices could be heard again, and hands started pulling on his rope at several places, leading to cutting down into his skin even more and lifting him up from the safety of the sea. A whaling sound left Mingyu’s mouth, when he lost the contact to the water, feeling like his heart was ripped straight from his chest.

Merfolk and the ocean – that was a synthesis that had existed for thousands and thousands of years. They needed each other and no one should dare to break this sacred bond they swore to each other the minute a new heart of the community started beating. Mingyu belonged to the ocean and every second he spent out of it felt like torture.

His body landed in the sand, the sun shining down merciless on his body and wouldn’t have been there the blinding pain from his tail, he would have felt his skin getting drier and drier. It was hard to breathe, his arms painfully and awkwardly tied onto his body, the rope still rough against his skin, cutting in deep and sand in his mouth.

The humans were still there, talking with deep and rumbling voices which seemed to be so loud and all around him, successfully even drowning out the sound of the sea he had heard all his life.

Was this the end?

Mingyu felt a tear dropping down, till they kept on streaming down his entire face.

What were they going to do with him? Kill him on the spot and use his scales for their clothes? Keep him barely alive just to kill him later? Eat him?

He just wanted to go home, close his eyes and come to the conclusion, that he once again fell asleep while watching television on his couch, with all of this turning out to be a bad dream.

Mingyu shut his eyes so tightly that it almost started hurting, praying to Poseidon that he would be back in his tiny apartment he never knew he loved so much till this moment, once he opened them again. But there was only sand and the sad shell of a crab which also had found its end on this beach. Panic took over him and Mingyu once again closed his eyes, this time pictures of his parents, his friends and even of his stupid pet-shark he had with five flashed by, his heart almost breaking with longing to go back to them. His body once again started to shake, this time out of panic, but due to the handywork of the humans tying him up, only his fin wagged slightly, sending him waves of pain.

No.

No, he was a proud creature of the sea, roaming the other world for centuries before those weird creatures decided to settle down on dry land. If he would be slain, he would not bow, not give them the satisfaction of seeing him shake.

Mingyu bit down hard on his bottom-lip, till he could taste blood to stop his body from moving. A weird, calm feeling had taken advantage of him. The feeling of panic and longing had ceased, only leaving behind a mind of a hard resolution.

_Maybe this is how you feel when you made peace with death._

The thought shot through him the moment someone yanked on the rope, pulling him out of the sand and ground and sky switched places once again, making him dizzy. He tried his best to make himself heavier than he was, with his fin adding extra weight, but the rough hands pushing into his skin merciless and making him dangle over the ground. All the remaining air was pushed out of his stomach when his body got thrown over something, he suspected was a shoulder. His head and fin dropped down, blood rushing into his head and he instinctively gasped out loud, the only effect being a loud rumbling around him coming from the barbaric men. Mingyu couldn’t differentiate if they were talking or laughing, but this proven only being secondary, as suddenly his abductor started walking.

Despite maybe having made peace with death, Mingyu was so so afraid. But he was unable to squeeze his eyes shut and rather starred in trance at the dusty path they were following, feeling his wound and the sun shining down on him. Despite his best efforts to keep still, his face bobbed up and down due to the uneven path, his jaw painfully crashing down on the chest of his kidnapper.

He couldn’t say how long they walked like this; he had left his feeling for the passing of time in Atlantis. At one point he was able to close his eyes, pressing them tightly shut together, as well as his lips, trying to deny the ugly reality that was unfolding in front of him.

Loud and shrill voices could be heard around him and suddenly he missed the deep rumbling of his rough kidnappers - at least it didn’t make his ears bleed out. Suddenly there were hands, touching his body. Mingyu wanted to shake them off, how dared they to touch a creature of the sea with their unworthy hands, but he couldn’t and so he had to endure the cascade of touches that erupted. Some of them were somewhat gentle, some of them barely noticeable and some of them slapped straight down on his sensitive skin. The pain in his fin got even more noticeable with some hands showing no mercy drilling into his scales. 

A deep rumbling coming from his kidnapper, the hands retreating and the weird two feet of the man coming to a halt.

He still stared down on the ugly pebbly path beneath, till suddenly ground and sky got mixed up again, merging together into a sickening experience.

He heard another shriek, felt a dull pain on his head – and then everything went black around him. 

**Author's Note:**

> this is my long-term project, soo there won't be regular updates. in the meantime i will return to soft minwon as i can't see them suffer.
> 
> [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/puffygyus) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=puffygyus) (i am no interesting person tho :<)


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